Martin Valdivia, Research Director, presented the study "Contracting the road to development early impacts of a rural roads program" in the 2008 Conference of the Northeastern Universities Development Consortium. This year the conference was held at Boston University and was attended by senior researchers in the topic of development of the universities of the region

The executive committee of the Working Group on Education and Assessment of PREAL (Programa de Promoción de la Reforma Educativa en América Latina y el Caribe), composed by Mariana Aylwin, Felipe Martínez, Pedro Ravela, Gilbert Valverde, Richard Wolfe, Larry Wolf y Patricia Arregui met in Cusco on November 9-10 to evaluate the performance of its biennial program of the activities and formulate a new plan work..

On November 11-12 was held the first national seminar of educational research in Arequipa. This event was organized by the Peruvian Society of Educational Research. This seminar was sponsored by the universities Católica Santa María, San Pablo and San Agustín from Arequipa. Among the discussants were the researchers Santiago Cueto, "Sense of belonging in the transition to secondary education", Patricia Arregui, "Uses of the assessment results of learning achievements in Latin America", Martín Benavides, "Levels of coupling and decoupling in the family-school relationships in the rural contexts: the case of a sample of families in Quispicanchis": Heidi Rodrich, "Curricula changes in the secondary school 1996-2006: opinion of a group of ex civil servants and teachers of public schools". Tamia Portugal, "The transition to the secondary school from the narratives of children" and Inés Olivera, "The meaning of education". .

On October 30, Martin Benavides, Executive Director of GRADE, participated as speaker in the roundtable "Public Policies of Education" in the academic event Aula Magna 2008 "The State Reform: The role of the public policies" sponsored by Universidad Católica del Perú .

The board of directors of the Peruvian Institute of Assessment, Accreditation and Certification of the Quality of Basic and Technical Education has incorporated as member of the advisory council to Patricia Arregui, senior researcher of GRADE..

Raul Andrade, Associate researcher at Group for the Analysis of Development (GRADE), analyzes for the IDRC press the methodology for assessing the impact that the simplification of the registration process in Lima has had on small and medium enterprises. Listen to the interview: Click here.

The Boulder Institute of Microfinance in partnership with the University of Bergamo has designed a forum to bring together leading academic researchers and key policy makers to tackle and discuss the unique challenges associated with delivering and expanding the frontier for rural finance to the poor. The primary purpose of this inaugural conference is to shorten the cycle between ideas, research, and the practical application of policies designed to expand the delivery of financial services to poor people. Martín Valdivia presented at the rountable “Credit Bureaus” with Bruce Wydick (University of San Francisco), Craig Mcintosh (UC San Diego)) y Peer Stein (IFC).. This year, the conference is supported by the Rural Finance Program at The Ohio State University .

On Monday 8th September the Photo Exhibition "Childhood, their present and their hopes" will be inaugurated. This is exhibition is part of the activities of Young Lives Research Project, and it is also related to the 50th celebration of the school of psychology at the Catholic University of Peru.

The day of the closing ceremony of the Photo Exhibition, Santiago Cueto, PhD in Educational Psychology will deliver a conference named "Children of the Millennium, a longitudinal study about childhood poverty" at the auditorium of the Department of Humanities at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.

Patricia Arregui attended the III meeting of the Ibero-American Comission of Experts for Educational Assessment that took place in Sao Paulo, Brazil on September 4 th. The aim of the meeting was to review the chapters of a book about educational assessment that will be published soon. The authors are members of the Commission; almost of them are also members of the Standards and Assessment Working Group which is coordinated by Patricia Arregui.

From 27 to 29 August Patricia Arregui, José Luis Carbajo (TAREA), and Rosa María Mujica (IPEDEHP) attended several meetings with political authorities, education experts and teachers from Quispicanchis, Cusco, in the context of the evaluation of the PROPONE Project that develop these two organizations in Peru.

Between September - October 2008, Javier Escobal and Santiago Cueto will visit Oxford University as visiting research fellow as part of the activities of Young Lives Research Project.

For more information about the program, visit the website of RIMISP:
http://www.rimisp.org/proyectos/index_portada_noticia.php?id_proyecto=180.

With the support of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the PEP network has been developing its activities since 2002, bringing together and providing scientific and financial support to teams of developing country researchers working to reduce poverty. The PEP network is co-directed by the Université Laval and the Angelo King Institute of De La Salle University, Phillipines; and organizes an annual call for proposals on various issues related to poverty reduction.

The Latin American office aims to develop training, research and dissemination activities specific for regional researchers. For the research component, funding will be sought to provide financial, scientific and training support to teams with projects selected through an open and competitive call for proposals.

Martin Valdivia, Senior Researcher of GRADE, is the first director of the Latin American office and will be coordinating with various regional researchers to define priority areas and elaborate a rigorous and policy relevant research agenda, as well as coordinating regional fundraising activities. Additionally, the director will be in charge of coordinating regional activities in collaboration with core PEP staff and international resource persons.

For further information regarding future PEP Regional Network activities, contact the following email: pep-la@grade.org.pe.

Four GRADE senior researchers will be presenting their studies and participating in LACEA – LAMES Annual Meeting, hosted by Fedesarrollo and Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, October 04 to 06th 2007.

The presentations are scheduled as follows:

Researchers: Miguel Jaramillo, Verónica Montalva & José Galdo (McMaster University IZA)
Títle: “Household Wealth and Heterogeneous Impacts of Market-Based Training Programs”
Session: Red de Evaluación de Impacto (Impact Evaluation Network – IEN)
Date: October 03, 2007
Time: 03:00 – 03:25 p.m.
Classroom: ML515, Universidad de Los Andes


Researchers: Eduardo Zegarra & Javier Escobal
Títle: “Tittling, Credit Constrainst and Rental Markets in Rural Peru: Exploring Channels and Conditioned Impacts”
Session LACEA: Titling in Latin America Effects and Channels
Date: October 04, 2007
Time: 03:00 – 4:30 p.m.
Classroom: LL205, Universidad de Los Andes


Researchers: Martín Valdivia & Dean Karlan (Yale University)
Títle: “Teaching Entrepreneurship: Impact of Business Training on Microfinance Clients and Institutions”
Session: The Savings of the Poor
Date: October 05, 2007
Time: 03:00 – 04:30 p.m.
Classroom: ML516, Universidad de los Andes


Researchers: Martín Valdivia & Gianmarco León (UC Berkeley)
Títle: “School Characteristics and Academia Achievement in Peru: Is the Geographical Distribution of Resources Reinforcing Social Exclusión?
Session: Determinants of School Achievements
Date: October 05, 2007
Time: 10:45 – 12:15 a.m.
Classroom: LL205, Universidad de los Andes

In the last call for proposals from CIES, GRADE researchers obtained support to develop 4 research projects.

In the category medium-size projects, the following studies will be conducted:

- “Connecting rural communities for development: searching the impacts on the rural roads public policy”, by Martin Valdivia.

- “Beyond the school and work: the time use and the child development”, by Carmen Ponce.

In the category small-size projects, which GRADE reserves for its assistant researchers, two projects were funded:

• “Evaluating negative impacts on desertion: identifying asymmetric effects of parametric and nonparametric methodologies for the Peruvian case”, by Paola Vargas and Alvaro Zevallos.

• “Are the conditional transferences enough to increase the access to health services? The infrastructure role as complementary policy variable”, by Arturo García.

The official results are available at the CIES web page:
http://cies.org.pe/files/active/0/InformeSocios5set07.pdf)

Dr. Miguel Jaramillo, a Senior Researcher at GRADE, has been awarded the medal for Best Research in Developing Countries in the category Health Concerns, Domestic Responses and Reforms at the Annual Conference of the Global Development Network (GDN) in Beijing (January 2007).

In the last call for proposals from CIES, GRADE researchers obtained the maximum number of awards possible in each category. Two proposals were awarded funding in the medium-size projects: First place, “From 5th grade to the end of high school in six years: a longitudinal study in Puno” with Santiago Cueto as the Principal Investigator and second place “How to achieve that property titles help dynamise agriculture activities in rural areas?”, with Javier Escobal as the PI; two small projects were also awarded funding: Second place, “The national curriculum: analysis of changes and continuities in curricular policies in high school, 2000-2005” with Paul Neira and Heidi Rodrich as co-PI’s and sixth place for “Vulnerability to poverty and exposition to external markets: an individual analysis” with Cristina Rosemberg as PI; finally, the research network “Rural development for the Andes: taking advantage of the ‘Sierra Exportadora’ program to promote a holistic strategy for development” was ranked first. The study will be carried out by researchers from IEP, GRADE and CIPCA. The PI for GRADE in this network is Javier Escobal. The aforementioned studies will start immediately and will be concluded in 2007. For more information see the website of CIES (http://www.consorcio.org).

Dr Javier Escobal D' Angelo, economist with a masters and doctoral studies from New York University and a PhD. degree in Development Economics at Wageningen University, Currently he is a Research Director and Senior Researcher in GRADE has obtenied for The Amsterdam for Institute international Development (AIID) the Award for the best thesis doctorate presented on The Netherlands in 2005, the title is “The Role of Public infrastructures in Market Development in Rural Peru”.

In the last call for proposals from CIES, researchers from GRADE won support to conduct four studies.

In the category medium size projects, the following studies will be conducted:

Minimum Wage Changes in Peru: How Does the Market Adjust?, by Miguel Jaramillo (first place).

Impact evaluation of teachers' attendance to school on student achievement, by Santiago Cueto and Maximo Torero.

In the small size projects, which GRADE reserves for its assistant researchers, two projects were funded:

Today for you... tomorrow for me? The restrictive effect of intergenerational transfers on provisional savings in Peru, by Veronica Frisancho (first place)

Seeking alternatives for overcoming poverty in Peru: Estimating impacts of a cash transfer program on school attendance, by Cesar Cancho.

It is worth noting that GRADE won the maximum number of awards allowed per institution in each category.

The official results are available at the CIES web page:
http://www.consorcio.org/novedades/Resultados_ACDI-IDRC_2004.pdf

On March 2004, Patricia Arregui, Senior Researcher at GRADE, was appointed by US Ambassador J. Curtis Struble as member of the Board of the Fulbright Commission for Educational Exchange between the United States and Peru. The main responsabilities of this Commission include planning and monitoring of the various graduate study grant and visiting scholar programs for univesity professors and graduate Students sponsored by this institution. Thanks to this program several of GRADE's current principal researchers studied and graduated from American Universities, while some former Assistant Researchers are currently doing their graduate coursework. This has been the most important reason why Mrs, Arregui accepted this honor and responsibility.

Javier Escobal has been elected as finalist for a medal in research papers category.

Maximo Torero and Martin Benavides have been invited to a discussion workshop about poverty.

Lorena Alcazar has been invited to present a study of absenteeism in educational and health systems. This study has been simultaneously done in many countries.

Daniel Oda has been invited as outstanding student.

Also, GDN will allow GRADE presenting an institutional booth.

For further information, visit GDN website (www.gdnet.org)which has multiple possibilities of interest for our research.

The proposal won first prize in the CIES competition and involves a Research Network on Decentralization that also includes Cayetano Heredia University and the Research Institute for the Peruvian Forest. The project will include the following researchers from GRADE: Martin Valdivia, Martin Benavides, Lorena Alcazar and Miguel Jaramillo.

In the last call for proposals from CIES, researhers from GRADE win support to conduct four studies.

In the category medium size projects, the following studies will be conducted:

Development of rural markets: the role of uncertainty and credit restrictions, by Javier Escobal.

Tell me whith whom you study and I will tell you your achievement: Peer effects as determinants of school achievement, by Santiago Cueto and Jorge Aguero.

In the small size projects, which GRADE reserves for its assistant researchers, two projects were funded:

Tax evasion and the Informal Sector in Peru: an Approach from a Model of Consumption Discrepancies, by Manuel Hernandez and Jorge de la Roca.

The effect of accesibility in the impact of rural telephones, by Magdalena Benza and Jose Deustua.

The official results of this call for proposals are available at the CIES web page:
http://www.consorcio.org/novedades/Ganadores_ACDI-IDRC_2003.pdf

GRADE researchers won the international prize for outstanding research with the study "Economics of social exclusion in Peru: an invisible wall", by Hugo Ñopo, Jaime Saavedra and Maximo Torero (with the help of Gisselle Gajate and Martin Moreno). The award was given by the Global Development Network (GDN).

At the same event GRADE researchers were awarded a medal in the category Education, Knowledge and Technology for their study "Opportunities to learn and achievement in mathematics", by Santiago Cueto, Cecilia Ramirez, Juan Leon and Oscar Pain (January, 2003).

The jury was formed by Nicholas Stern (World Bank); Francois Bourguignon (Delta, France); Masahiro Kawai (Ministry of Finance, Japan); Nancy Birdsall (Center for Global Development); José María Fanelli (Center for the Study of State and Society, CEDES); and Fernando Loayza (Consultant, Bolivia).

See the official results in GDN's web page.

See pictures of the Conference

The GDN has announced the third annual competition for the Global Development Awards. Researchers from developing countries or those in transition can present their proposals to compete for three types of prizes: Outstanding Research Award, Research Medals and Most Innovative Development Project.

Globalization and Equity is the main theme of the competition. The proposals can address any of the five topics below:

(i) Growth, inequity and poverty; (ii) Trade and foreign direct investment; (iii) Education, knowledge and technology; (iv) Financial markets; and (v) Health, environment and development.

There are no topic restrictions for the Most Innovative Project Award.

For more information, visit the following website:

http://www.gdnet.org/subpages/events_global.html

Peruvian researcher Javier Escobal, of the Grupo de Análisis para el Desarrollo (GRADE), was awarded a medal for outstanding research in the category of infrastructure and development for his project: "Benefits of rural roads in Peru: A cost-transaction perspective."

The prize was awarded as part of the annual competition organized by the Global Development Network, which this year took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Between January and July 2001, at the request of Education Minister Marcial Rubio Correa, Patricia Arregui actively participated on the Commission for a National Education Agreement, established by President Valentín Paniagua. Sixteen education, academic, business and social communication professionals served on the Commission. The Commission presented the document "Bases for a National Education Agreement" to President Paniagua, who in turn delivered it to President-elect Alejandro Toledo, represented by his wife, Ms. Eliane Karp, in a ceremony held on July 20 at the Lima Museum of Art. The Commission based its recommendations on a review of the progress of the national consultation led by the president of the Commission, as well as on the discussion of contributions by several members.

The proposal is available on the Ministry of Education's website:

http://www.minedu.gob.pe/acuerdo_por_educacion

GRADE obtained funding for five projects in the recent competition for the Economic and Social Research Consortium (Consorcio de Investigación Económica y Social (CIES)). GRADE took first prize in both categories (October 2001). In the most recent CIES research competition, GRADE researchers obtained support for the development of five projects.

In the category of medium-term projects, the organization obtained support to develop three projects, the maximum possible per institution. A jury ranked five GRADE projects among the 10 best of the 23 projects presented. The projects to be implemented are as follows:

Learning opportunities and math performance in a sample of sixth-grade students. Santiago Cueto

Family planning and mother-child health programs in Peru. Martín Valdivia

Social program evaluation: importance and methodologies. Econometric estimation for the Projoven case. Miguel Robles

In the short project category, to which only assistant researchers can apply in the case of GRADE, two projects won out of a maximum of three per institution. The following projects were selected:

The impact of food programs on the level of child malnutrition: an approximation based on the propensity score matching methodology. Giselle Gajate and Marisol Inurritegui.

Business development services and performance of micro and small businesses in Peru: the case of the garment and metal mechanics industries. Juan Manuel García and Manuel Hernández

GRADE research projects won first place in both categories, as they have in the past three CIES competitions. This year, GRADE Senior Researcher Santiago Cueto's project took first place in the medium-term project category. Gissele Gajate and Marisol Inurritegui's project won first place in the short project category.

MINING AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT BRING TOGETHER REPRESENTATIVES OF FIVE SOUTH AMERICAN COUNTRIES

Identifying the best way for mining to contribute to sustainable development, taking into account the perspectives of the multiple stakeholders and diverse regional perspectives, is the global objective of the Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development Project (MMSD). The project is headed by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) headquartered in London. The final report of the project will be presented at the Earth Summit, scheduled to be held next year in Johannesburg.

In South America, the IIED convened the team of the Research Initiative on Mining Policy, a regional program implemented from Montevideo, and the Chilean Environmental Research and Planning Center (Centro Chileno de Investigación y Planificación del Medio Ambiente -- CIPMA) to coordinate project activities. Institutions of Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Brazil are preparing a regional report on mining and sustainable development, which will be incorporated into the final document.

The report will summarize the results of a regional consultation process in which different stakeholders involved in mining activity in the aforementioned countries participated. The report will incorporate an updated vision of mining and sustainable development in each of the countries.

All the institutions participated in the Second Meeting of the Advisory Group, Coordinators and Observers of the MMSD Project, South America, held on September 24-25 at the Hotel Alcalá del Río in Lima. Participants presented proposals and forged agreements on topics and perspectives that the Latin American countries believe should be clearly established in the global report of the MMSD project to assure the inclusion of a Latin American regional vision.

In Peru, GRADE was responsible for coordinating activities and researching mining and sustainable development topics. At the seminar, the conclusions of nine workshops held between July and August were presented, in which different consultations were made. A total of 83 representatives of all sectors participated: government, businesses, local communities, universities, non-governmental organizations, environmental impact consultants, mayors of five mining provinces, indigenous organizations and representatives of small-scale, informal mining projects.

Fifty people attended the seminar, including members of the project advisory group, national and regional coordinators and observers of different groups and countries. The Vice-Minister of Mining, César Polo, inaugurated the event, which was also attended by top-level executives from the private sector.

The National Work and Social Promotion Council (Consejo Nacional de Trabajo y Promoción Social) was reinstated on September 21, under the leadership of the Minister of Labor, Fernando Villarán. Executive Director Jaime Saavedra will represent GRADE on the council.

The consultative body will analyze and discuss the proposals presented by different syndicates and stakeholders associated with the labor market. Currently, the council is made up of representatives of workers, employers, organizations associated with the sector and the Ministry of Labor.

The conference will take place on June 21-23, 2001, to discuss "The Political Economy of Providing Social Services". The call for papers closes on March 30, 2001. Research work will focus on subjects related to health, education, access to infrastructure, social security and welfare assistance, including the broad process of institutional reforms and their design.

Visit the conference web site

Studies were performed for eleven countries based on multipurpose household surveys. The type of access to water supply, as well as the main socioeconomic characteristics of the households, can be determined based on the answers to the survey.

The studies were developed by Grupo de Análisis para el Desarrollo (GRADE) Lima, Peru.

Visit the project's website

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation grants fellowships to support research and artistic creation of scholars and artists in all areas. The Fellowship is granted in the United States and Latin America. Javier Escobal's research will focus on "Links between Rural Producers and the Market."

Visit The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation website

See the award results for the year 2001

Comments by Patricia de Arregui on the presentations made by Jacques Hallak and Claudio de Moura Castro.

Comments by Jaime Saavedra on the proposal for education made by IPAE, prepared by Hugo Díaz, Raúl Salazar and León Trahtemberg.

Peruvian researchers, Javier Escobal and Máximo Torero of the Grupo de Análisis para el Desarrollo (GRADE) won the first International Award for Outstanding Research on Development granted in Tokyo by the Global Development Network for their research on public intervention to overcome poverty. Another Peruvian award-winner was anthropologist Jeanine Anderson from Universidad Católica del Perú, for her research on the development of disadvantaged groups in urban shantytowns in Lima. The prizes were awarded by the Japanese Finance Minister, Kiichi Miyazawa.

The study by Javier Escobal and Máximo Torero, How to Face an Adverse Geography: The Role of Public and Private Assets received the first Global Development Award given by the Global Development Network(Global Development Network, GDN).

The paper examines the impact on reduction of poverty of three types of infrastructure and services: 1) traditional infrastructure, such as transportation, sanitation, water and electricity; 2) services related to accumulation of human capital, such as schooling and health services; and 3) social capital strengthened by use of and access to information and communication technologies. The study helps to identify ways to target poverty alleviation policies more effectively.

Torero and Escobal are senior researchers at the Grupo de Análisis para el Desarrollo (GRADE). Torero has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California at Los Angeles, while Escobal followed his doctoral studies in Economics at New York University.

Award winners were selected by jury members Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize for Economics; Joseph Stiglitz, former Vice-president of the World Bank; Nancy Birdsall, former Vice-president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB); Francois Bourguignon (World Bank) and Takatoshi Ito (Ministry of Finance of Japan).

The Global Development Network is a recently created institution whose goal is to improve links between development policy actions and social science research institutions. The network is sponsored by the World Bank, the United Nations and several German, US and Japanese public organizations.

See news article in El Comercio
See news article in Semana Económica
See news article in Daily Yomiuri
See news article in The Yomiuri Shimbun/Daily Yomiuri
See World Bank press release